Fast three-dimensional black-blood MR imaging for carotid artery intra-plaque haemorrhage using DANTE-prepared FLASH (3D-DASH)

Background DANTE (Delays Alternating with Nutation for Tailored Excitation) pulse trains are a rapid series of low flip angle RF pulses interspersed with gradients. We have previously demonstrated that when using DANTE pulse trains as a preparation module prior to imaging readout, the longitudinal magnetization of flowing spins is substantially attenuated, whereas the longitudinal magnetization of static tissue/fluid is mostly preserved [1]. In this study we introduce a new DANTE-prepared 3D FLASH T1 weighted (T1w) sequence (denoted ‘3DDASH’) [2] that is able to generate 0.6 mm isotropic resolution images with an average imaging speed better than 2 sec/slice.